The Importance of Anger as an Emotion

Anger is a very important feeling (not to be confused with bitterness or evil as a concept). When anger is suppressed for a long time, we lose access to the energy of our desires (“I don’t know what I want”), and over time, we may start to feel “I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I’m like.” Various health issues can arise if anger is suppressed for too long and too thoroughly. Uncontrollable outbursts of all kinds can occur—total guilt (read: anger directed at oneself), depression, and the emergence of an inner critic who settles in your head and constantly devalues your every step, making you doubt your own worth. To avoid being destroyed by all this, we start projecting these feelings onto the outside world.

Where anger is suppressed, there are constant resentments that can lead to endless nights of crying into your pillow or frequent sore throats. Anger comes in many forms. Sometimes it serves as a defense of something valuable. Other times, it’s a symptom that we’re not taking responsibility for our own lives, expecting others to act as we believe is fair and right, or assuming others should understand what we mean even when we don’t say it directly.

In any case, anger is a regulator of our personal boundaries. Where anger is suppressed, there is no clarity about our own boundaries. We may violate others’ boundaries or bend our own excessively.

Misconceptions About Anger

Anger is often labeled a “negative emotion.” Many believe that being angry is bad, stupid, pointless, wrong, or even sinful. But I think the real issue is that expressing anger is a skill that few people are taught. Anger is often seen as dangerous—dangerous for relationships, for how others perceive us (“What will people think of me? I want to be ‘good’ in others’ eyes…”). There’s a whole train of issues that can follow from this.

Anger is the “teeth” of our personality. With them, we can chew on what’s useful, protect ourselves, and express ourselves. The question isn’t whether to be angry or suppress your anger. The question is how to express your anger.

Learning to Express Anger

When I worked with children, many of them were surprised to learn that they could express their anger with words like, “I’m angry right now,” or “When you take my toy or destroy my buildings, ruin my drawings, I get angry. I don’t like it. Please don’t do that, or I’ll distance myself from you/argue with you/stop trusting you.”

Before learning this, their only way to defend themselves and express anger was to take the toy back, ruin the other child’s drawing in return, hit, call names, throw a tantrum, or, in one case, a boy held it in for so long that he grabbed a knife and attacked his offender.

Parents, who also were never taught how to express anger, would clutch their hearts, feel ashamed, yell at their children, and force them to stop—essentially, to suppress their anger. After all, what would people think?

Few of us were taught to recognize our anger: “You’re angry right now because Vanya took your toy. You have the right to be angry and to say so: ‘I’m angry and I don’t want you to take my toy. Give it back.’ You don’t need to hit Vanya—that hurts. But you can take care of yourself by stating your feelings and warning what you’ll do if Vanya doesn’t listen and keeps going.”

Or, “You’re angry right now because you want to keep playing, but it’s time to stop. I see your anger. But you don’t need to hit me—it hurts, and I won’t let you hit me. You can talk about your anger and feel it. I see you don’t want to stop playing, but those are the rules, and there’s nothing we can do. We have to leave, no matter how hard it is.”

Anger as a Path to Self-Understanding

Anger is a way to understand yourself, to feel your own importance and your own self. Anger is always a marker of something important. Usually, it’s a wrapper for deeper feelings and experiences. But if we don’t recognize our anger, it’s like throwing away boxes labeled “anger” without ever knowing what’s inside. And often, those boxes contain treasures called “my values.” By allowing ourselves to feel and experience anger, we can unwrap these boxes and discover what’s inside.

Healthy Ways to Experience Anger

Experiencing anger does not mean hitting someone, insulting them, or destroying everything around you. Experiencing anger means staying in touch with the feeling and giving it space for as long as needed, while taking care of your own safety and the safety of those around you.

Insulting someone and stating, “I’m angry when you do this,” or “I’m angry at you right now and will continue the conversation when I calm down,” are completely different things. In the first case (insults), you’re overwhelmed by excitement and may do things you’ll regret once you “sober up” from your anger. In the second case, you clearly state your feelings and give yourself space for your anger to transform into something else—like realizing the value of not allowing yourself to be insulted, or feeling regret that things didn’t turn out as you wanted, or recognizing the value of your relationship with that person, or even realizing that beneath your anger lies your own fear or vulnerability.

Anger as a Loyal Guardian

Anger is like a loyal dog, always guarding the safety and values of its owner. The important thing is to tame and befriend this dog.

P.S. And by the way, where anger is suppressed, it creates fertile ground for codependent relationships.